Flowers in black and white. A different way to view our natural world. Seeing form over color. An artistic way to interpret our gardens. Seeing things differently, that is what photography should be about.

Wildflowers and natural dyeing are closely connected. This year’s blooming goldenrod provide the dye material for dyeing my wool yellow for the coming year. Goldenrod provides a beautiful vibrant yellow, and is also a wonderful base coat for dyeing greens in combination with natural indigo. Working with natural materials means each item you create has […]

En plein art painting is always an interesting experience. You are dealing with shifting light, unpredictable conditions plus distractions. The great thing about working en plein air is how it teaches you to see and break down a scene so that it can be rendered on paper or canvas.

It has been quite a while since I have painted en plein air landscapes, but the last few days provided great opportunities. The beaches of Pender Island have been beautiful places to sit and paint.

Being a minimalist at heart, I have made a few changes to the art equipment used for outdoor painting. The art kit has now been stripped down to a watercolour pad, a waterbrush, a small travel watercolour paint kit, and a fountain pen. So streamlined. Less is definitely proving to be best, allowing me to focus on the painting rather than on an overwhelming array of art materials.

Yesterday was a day for shooting roofs. A local roofing and exteriors firm is updating their website and needed images of some of the projects they had completed.

In addition to photographing the buildings, much of the look of the final image comes down to the editing of the images. Things like making sure color is accurate and that contrast is visually pleasing is all part of creating a polished final image.

The image above has also been altered in the sky area in order to take text. The solid color makes it easier to place text in the image that is easy to read. This technique is also popular if a client is wishing to place their company logo on an image, or wishing to blend an image with surrounding packaging, as in food photography.

Other alterations that occur to create a pleasing image are the blending and darkening of areas of the image in order to highlight the main subject matter, as well as the removal of distracting elements.

The goal is to create the finest image possible for the client whether it is portrait, food, product or architectural photography.

2017 has brought about many changes to the services and options we offer for business, portrait, food, product and wedding photography. Our website has just been updated with the new changes, and the details can be found on the Pricing page. we are sure the changes will bring forth a year of creative shooting.

This post is “the rest of Opus Daily Practice”. A bit of traveling managed to happen at the end of this project which meant I was able to post to Instagram, but my cell phone data plan was unhappy with the usage needed for blogging. Below are the rest of the pieces created for the 28 days of Opus Daily Practice.

Day 16

Urban photography in Red Deer, Alberta

Day 17

sketching ideas

Day 18

watercolor of the Salish Sea painted from a BC Ferry

watercolors painted from the ferry

hand knit west coast inspired hat

Day 19

ink drawing

Day 20

en plein air watercolor of Peter Cove South on Pender Island, BC

Day 21

en plein air watercolor of Peter Cove South on Pender Island, BC

knitting an earflap toque with naturally dyed wool

Day 22

acrylic on panel (photographed in very poor lighting conditions)

Day 23

en plein air drawing at Craddock Drive on Pender Island, BC, Canada

Day 24

en plein air drawing at Roesland, Pender Island, BC, Canada

west coast inspired fingerless mitts

Day 25

en plein air sketch at the ferry terminal on Pender Island

Day 26

knit mini bag in progress at the top of the Rogers Pass

an ink drawing of Mount Rundle in progress

Day 27

a painting of Kootenay National Park (acrylic on panel)

Day 28

a painting depicting kayaking on the Salish Sea (acrylic on canvas)

The daily practice challenge was just that, a challenge. It made you create even when life was busy. It is a good way to build skills and work through creative block.

I’m a little bit behind on blogging about my Opus Daily Practice, so I thought I would do one multi day post instead.

Day 12 – The theme was forest. I managed to finish off a painting based on a forest area in Kootenay National Park.

I also worked away on a naturally dyed ear flap hat.

Day 13 – was a “work in progress” day, knowing that I still needed to complete more drawings before Friday

Day 14 – involved finishing up 3 miniature drawings

plus work on another Cowichan inspired hat.

Day 15 – involved another side of an artistic practice which included documenting all the drawings and the start of matting and framing each piece so that they will be ready to go to the gallery on Pender Island.

We are more than half way through Opus Daily Practice. It has been fun consciously working each day, plus watching others post their work on Instagram and Twitter.